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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

I haven't been able to relax for the last few weeks. I thought maybe it was because I'd overbooked myself, with happy hours and dates and cooking classes and travel for work, and I was looking forward to a few evenings to myself. But now that I've had a few quiet days to catch my breath, I'm noticing that the tension isn't subsiding. I can't blame it on the busy holiday season because I'm not traveling and I have a grand total of only two gifts to buy this year, one of which is already taken care of. It's not carryover stress from work or conflicts in my personal life, either. I just feel a restlessness, like there's something I need to be doing and I can't catch my breath until it's done.

The truth is, everything is more or less fine. And that's a pretty unfamiliar state of affairs for me. I can't remember the last time I said that.

I'm relatively content at work. Most of my personal relationships are in a good place, and those that aren't are probably better off that way. I have a pretty healthy social life with a great circle of friends. I recently met an interesting guy and I'm looking forward to seeing where things go with him, but if they don't work out, I'm certain I'll be fine. Juliette is healthy. I'm working on getting healthier. I have enough money to pay my bills and save for a vacation next year.

Things are good.

And yet I can't shake this feeling that I need to be working on something, doing something, fixing something. I don't know how to just sit with this state of affairs and be content. It feels awkward, as if even though everything is okay, I should be working on making it better. As if "okay" isn't really okay somehow.

I've never been very good at the concept of "good enough." I'm told Type A overachiever perfectionists usually aren't. There's always something more I could do, or that could be done better. The strange truth, though, is that the endless striving makes me profoundly unhappy, but I also don't know how to just accept "good enough" or "fine" either. It's a lovely little Catch-22 I've created for myself here.

I think what I need to do is actually practice accepting things as being good enough. I have to force myself not to take all this pent up energy and put it into making things better or doing more, and instead just let it dissipate.